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Hardcastle Restaurants, which runs the franchise for the Western and Southern operations of McDonald's in the country, today announced the launch of its first McCafe in-restaurant in the city on October 14.

The first McCafe will come up at Sobo Central in central Mumbai.

Hardcastle Restaurants, a fully-owned subsidiary of Westlife Development, plans to set up around 150 McCafe in-restaurants over the next five years, entailing an investment of over Rs 50 crore, Westlife Development vice-chairman Amit Jatia said.

"We plan to have 75-150 McCafe in the West and South over the next three to five years to make it easily accessible. Setting up of one McCafe requires typically an investment of Rs 30-35 lakh," Jatia added.

"We see huge potential here as customers have a strong taste for coffee. We see an opportunity to continue expanding our beverages platform and efforts to gain a greater share of the beverage market," Jatia said.

The company will be very aggressive in rolling out these in-restaurants, leveraging the presence of 174 strong McDonald restaurants, Jatia said.

Jatia said the coffee market stands at USD 250-350 million, which is expected to go over USD 750 million over the next five years and has been growing at 15-17 per cent annually.

"We have not thought out of market share per se but we aim to be among the top three brands in globally.

"We believe McCafe will drive our beverage and food business to unparallelled heights and solidify McDonald's as an indisputable leader in the domestic quick-service restaurant arena," he said.

On competition from the peer group, Jatia said globally McCafe competes with all the big brands. "The unique positioning of the McCafe is that you get a global premium product at an affordable price," he said.